No. 9 
Forest and Stream 
Vol. LXXXIII. 
August 29, 1914 
outing Experienc 
By Collin McDougall, M. D. 
One stormy night in February, seated with a 
friend in his comfortable apartment I deplored 
the impossibility of getting such trout fishing as 
Canada affords without having to go to Canada 
for it. 
My friend, a seasoned sportsman, although, like 
myself more addicted to the woods than to the 
field, and to hunting rather than shooting as is 
generally understood by the latter term, viz on 
the field with dog and gun, and also, like myself, 
devotee of the rod and reel, and again like my¬ 
self in the taking of speckled trout only, said 
that he sympathized with me in my lament 'but 
that everyone who can appreciate the best trout 
fishing in the world should go to Canada at least 
once in his lifetime and have it, as he himself 
had done many times and hoped to do again, 
adding that the only objection was the danger 
of spoiling one for fishing anywhere else. This 
led to explanations with the result that I de¬ 
termined to visit a small lake among the many 
that dot the woods in the province of Quebec 
not far from New Brunswick which my friend 
had pre-empted and where in accordance with 
governmental requirement, he had built a log 
•.ouse of regulation character and dimensions. 
Ie had also constructed an ice house which he 
iad been in the habit of stocking every Winter, 
vhether he visited the lake or not. The house 
■ r as provided with a good cooking stove in a 
lean-to which extended the whole length of the 
house and served the purpose of a kitchen and 
quarters for the guide and cook. In the main 
house, which was in one room about eighteen by 
twenty-six feet, stood a box stove for heating 
the place during the chilly nights which, in that 
region begin about the middle of August. The 
sleeping accommodations were overhead and 
were reached by means of a ladder. The house, 
furnished with all necessary cooking and camp 
articles stood on a little eminence about thirty 
•ards from the water, a little bay projecting 
‘rom the lake the latter being a beautiful body 
f water about two miles long and a mile wide 
and surrounded by virgin forest of spruce, with 
a sprinkling of cedar and some hardwood tim¬ 
ber. At its upper end it was fed ‘by a large 
stream coming from another lake about three 
miles distant. Another stream, navigable with 
a canoe or boat drained it at its lower end. At 
the unpper end there was a tract of marsh land 
bearing wild rice and enormous beds of water 
lilies. At its lower end the ground was rocky, 
and rocks of various sizes stood out of the 
water, fine stands from which to cast a fly, and 
this proved to be the best fishing ground on the 
lake. 
I selected two friends who readily agreed to 
join me. Waiting until the end of July, when 
the mosquito and black fly season would be 
over, we left New York on the third of August, 
bound for the Quebec woods. 
There would appear to be three in our party 
and every moment of our lives since we entered 
of staying the month, returned to New York. 
After leaving Montreal where we purchased 
our finer supplies the boy, who monopolized the 
whole car as he later on did, the camp came in 
from the car platform minus his hat and pre¬ 
tended that he did not know what had become 
of it, which, to rub in ♦•he insult to our in¬ 
telligence, his father expe^.ed us to believe. The 
first start from the house to the boat found him 
I Had on a Parmacheene Bell With a Red Ibis for a Dropper. 
camp friend George and I wished that that had 
been all, but Fluff, the other member of our 
party had insisted on taking his boy, a noisy, 
conceited and unmannerly youth of twelve or 
fourteen years, with a voice that might tear the 
plates off a battleship, and that was never out 
of commission from morning till night. Although 
we were not long on the train before I dis¬ 
covered that we had been saddled with a pest 
it was when in camp and on the fishing ground 
that the dreadful boy became an insufferable 
nuisance, so much so that at the end of two 
weeks George, although out with the intention 
in the lead switching his rod in the air, and, dis¬ 
regarding advice as to the proper manner of 
carrying it, he succeeded in landing a hook in 
his thumb which had to be extracted to the ac- 
• companiment of howls that made the woods 
ring. We had a good fishing boat in which our 
guide took us out on the lake but when we 
commenced to fish the boy jumped on to a seat, 
wet and slippery, and began to thrash the air 
with his flies, slipping and stumbling, and, in 
order to maintain his balance, having occa¬ 
sionally to jump to the bottom of the boat, his 
father all the while looking on with admiration 
267 
